


It’s About Trust

by a_fearsome_thing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Pre-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_fearsome_thing/pseuds/a_fearsome_thing
Summary: They had a bond built on trust until she flung him to the Galra and rejected him as a pilot. Shiro just wants to understand why the Black Lion doesn't respond to him like she did before.





	It’s About Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr in November for Black Paladin Week Day 6: Duty/Choice. Written pre-season 6 and clone reveal but leaning heavily on the idea that this Shiro is a clone and doesn't know it.

Shiro stares up at the Black Lion, regal and imposing in her hanger at the Castle. She towers over him in the vast, cold space of her chamber, filling it with the sheer sense of the power that radiates off of her, the same power that left him awestruck the first time he saw her.

Even after so long together, he feels awe in her presence.

He feels fear, too. He’s  _afraid_ of her.

Shiro stands before her, motionless with his arms crossed, and studies her. She doesn’t do anything except allow him to watch her, the bond between them present but quieter than before his most recent capture. She doesn’t reach out to him through it, doesn’t welcome him into her hanger. She doesn’t move, her eyes don’t glow, her systems don’t light up, she doesn’t do  _anything_.

She just stays.

“You ejected me into space the first time we faced Zarkon.” His voice shatters the silence of the room despite how quietly he speaks. He keeps his tone steady, but there is a weight to the air once the words are allowed out, and Shiro fights to keep his gaze on her face. “He was hurting me—us—and I thought you were protecting me. You’d done it before.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw, and his fingers dig into his biceps before he can consciously relax. He’s so loud in such an empty space.

“You made me believe you were taking me from the Castle and tricked me into thinking we had left, but that was so we could strengthen our bond. You saved me from Zarkon then, too.” He frowns, and his fingers tighten. A sharp edge creeps into his tone as frustration and anger leak through his tight control. “Only, you let me fight first. I had to prove myself to you again, and then you decided I was worth it.”

He shakes his head and heat flares in his chest, “I’ve trusted you! We’ve done so much together—we got the black bayard back from Zarkon!” He can’t keep still any longer, his blood running hotly through him and driving him into an agitated prowl in front of Black.

“Every time I think we’ve bonded enough, something happens and we have to do it all over again. Do you not trust me? Is that it? Are all these tests to prove that I’m worthy of you?” He pulls to a halt and faces her, arms wide in supplication.

“What more do I have to do to be able to be the Black Paladin? What am I doing wrong?”

He’s suddenly cold. The anger that had been warming him leeching out of his skin and leaving only a chilly emptiness behind. He turns away from her, breathing hard. His headache is rising into a crest, pressing into the back of his eyes, and he pushes his fingers in a counter-pressure against them.

He had thought…

_Shiro, you will pilot the Black Lion._

_Defenders of the universe, huh?_

_Do you really think a monster like you could be a Voltron Paladin?_

Shiro shakes his head sharply, once, as if he can erase the words from his mind as simply as an etch a sketch. As if it could ever be that easy. His gaze falls to the floor as resolve solidifies in his gut. His head throbs in time with his heart. He clenches his jaw and looks up. He can’t even tell if Black is paying any attention to him.

He pulls out his bayard—the black bayard and walks slowly, heavily to a table to the side of the room, his back to the Lion. He’s so tired.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, injecting steel into his voice. It has all the strength of overworked metal. “I told Zarkon that what was most important between us was earning each other’s trust.” The bayard is smooth in his hands, elegant in its simplicity. He has no idea what shape it would take for him. “I’ve tried to earn your trust over and over again.” He sets the weapon down gently, his hand lingering over its sleek black and white lines. “But the thing is…”

He lifts his hand off the bayard and faces her, “I don’t trust you anymore.”

The Black Lion does nothing.

He waits, concentrates fully on the bond between them, on her looming presence before him. There’s no response.

He turns away. He’s so very tired.

“Maybe we can find you another Black Paladin. One you can actually trust. I hope you’ll let me pilot you until then, for the team.”

He strides forward with as much authority as he can muster, fighting the urge to bow his head as the pain in his chest overshadows the pounding of his temples.  _Say something_ , he urges,  _anything. Give me a reason to trust you again._   _Let me know what is so wrong about me_.

The door hisses open as he approaches, the barrier to a new reality in which he’s not the Black Paladin anymore. For good, this time. He can’t go back if he steps through that door, or else Black might finally be what shatters him.

He’s steps away from the door now, hope a breathless flutter in his chest.

 _Three to go._  The Black Lion tends towards a surprising flare for the dramatic.

 _Two_. She might not realize how much this is hurting him.

 _One_. The bond is quiet in the back of his mind.

The  _snick_  of the door sealing closed behind him crushes the wings of hope beneath its finality, and Shiro staggers to the wall beside the door where he can brace himself instead of collapsing to the ground, the tenuous strings holding him up severed. One shaking hand finds its way up to clutch at his aching head. The world crashes down around his ears. Shiro sucks in a gasp, his breath ragged.

His chest feels like the impossible cold of a black hole.

The Black Lion is silent.

**Author's Note:**

> So, again, this was posted on tumblr way back in November, but I wanted it here too. It was a sort-of submission for Black Paladin Week, but mostly a way to vent my feelings on the Black Lion rejecting Shiro (Kuron) at the beginning of that whole arc. Shiro and the Black Lion is my voltron OTP. I am team one true black paladin, and that is Shiro. I love their bond and the idea that what Kuron says here is true (that she sent him to get captured by the Galra, that she doesn't care about him, that he'll never be enough and constantly have to fight to prove himself, that Shiro may not be able to trust Black) breaks my whole damn heart. 
> 
> Honestly, Kuron still breaks my whole damn heart because he didn't know. This was me trying to process my feelings and mostly making myself sad. 
> 
> Anyway, as always, I'm thehouseofthebrave on tumblr and feel free to drop by! Comments and kudos make my entire life.


End file.
